Biometrics applications: gate keeping

Identity has to do with "place". In less mobile societies, the place where a person finds him/herself tells us something about his/her identity. In pre-industrial times, gatekeepers had the function to control access of people to particular places, i.e. the gatekeepers function was to identify people and then decide whether somebody's identity would allow that person to physically occupy another place - a town, a building, a vehicle, etc.

In modern societies, the unambiguous nature of place has been weakened. There is a great amount of physical mobility, and ever since the emergence and spread of electronic communication technologies there has been a "virtualisation" of places in what today we call "virtual space" (unlike place, space has been a virtual reality from the beginning, a mathematical formula) The question as to who one is no longer coupled to the physical abode. Highly mobile and virtualised social contexts require a new generation of gatekeepers which biometric technology aims to provide.

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Biometrics applications: privacy issues

All biometric technologies capture biometric data from individuals. Once these date have been captured by a system, they can, in principle, be forwarded to other locations and put to many different uses which are capable of compromising on an individuals privacy.

Technically it is easy to match biometric data with other personal data stored in government or corporate files, and to come a step closer to the counter-utopia of the transparent citizen and customer whose data body is under outside control.

While biometric technologies are often portrayed as protectors of personal data and safeguards against identity theft, they can thus contribute to an advance in "Big Brother" technology.

The combination of personalised data files with biometric data would amount to an enormous control potential. While nobody in government and industry would admit to such intentions, leading data systems companies such as EDS (Electronic Data Systems; http://www.eds.com) are also suppliers of biometric systems to the intelligence agencies of government and industry.

Biometric technologies have the function of identification. Historically, identification has been a prerequisite for the exercise of power and serves as a protection only to those who are in no conflict with this power. If the digitalisation of the body by biometric technologies becomes as widespread as its proponents hope, a new electronic feudal system could be emerging, in which people are reduced to subjects dispossessed of their to their bodies, even if these, unlike in the previous one, are data bodies. Unlike the gatekeepers of medieval towns, wear no uniforms by they might be identified; biometric technologies are pure masks.

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Economic structure; transparent customers

Following the dynamics of informatised economies, the consumption habits and lifestyles if customers are of great interest. New technologies make it possible to store and combine collected data of an enormous amount of people.

User profiling helps companies understand what potential customers might want. Often enough, such data collecting takes place without the customer's knowledge and amounts to spying.

"Much of the information collection that occurs on the Internet is invisible to the consumer, which raises serious questions of fairness and informed consent."

(David Sobel, Electronic Privacy Information Center)

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Problems of Copyright Management and Control Technologies

Profiling and Data Mining

At their most basic copyright management and control technologies might simply be used to provide pricing information, negotiate the purchase transaction, and release a copy of a work for downloading to the customer's computer. Still, from a technological point of view, such systems also have the capacity to be employed for digital monitoring. Copyright owners could for example use the transaction records generated by their copyright management systems to learn more about their customers. Profiles, in their crudest form consisting of basic demographic information, about the purchasers of copyrighted material might be created. Moreover copyright owners could use search agents or complex data mining techniques to gather more information about their customers that could either be used to market other works or being sold to third parties.

Fair Use

Through the widespread use of copyright management and control systems the balance of control could excessively be shifted in favor of the owners of intellectual property. The currently by copyright law supported practice of fair use might potentially be restricted or even eliminated. While information in analogue form can easily be reproduced, the protection of digital works through copyright management systems might complicate or make impossible the copying of material for purposes, which are explicitly exempt under the doctrine of fair use.

Provisions concerning technological protection measures and fair use are stated in the DMCA, which provides that "Since copying of a work may be a fair use under appropriate circumstances, section 1201 does not prohibit the act of circumventing a technological measure that prevents copying. By contrast, since the fair use doctrine is not a defense e to the act of gaining unauthorized access to a work, the act of circumventing a technological measure in order to gain access is prohibited." Also the proposed EU Directive on copyright and related rights in the information society contains similar clauses. It distinguishes between the circumvention of technical protection systems for lawful purposes (fair use) and the circumvention to infringe copyright. Yet besides a still existing lack of legal clarity also very practical problems arise. Even if the circumvention of technological protection measures under fair use is allowed, how will an average user without specialized technological know-how be able to gain access or make a copy of a work? Will the producers of copyright management and control systems provide fair use versions that permit the reproduction of copyrighted material? Or will users only be able to access and copy works if they hold a digital "fair use license" ("fair use licenses" have been proposed by Mark Stefik, whereby holders of such licenses could exercise some limited "permissions" to use a digital work without a fee)?

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some essential definitions

some essential definitions in the field of cryptography are:
- cryptoanalysis
- cryptology
- ciphers

"Few false ideas have more firmly gripped the minds of so many intelligent men than the one that, if they just tried, they could invent a cipher that no one could break." (David Kahn)

codes
plaintext
ciphertext
to encipher/encode
to decipher/decode

The variants of encryption systems are endless.
For deciphering there exists always the same game of trial and error (first guessing the encryption method, then the code). A help to do so is pruning. Once, after a more or less long or short period a code/cipher breaks. Monoalphabetic ciphers can be broken easily and of course are no longer used today but for games.

for further information on codes and ciphers etc. see:
http://www.optonline.com/comptons/ceo/01004A.html
http://www.ridex.co.uk/cryptology/#_Toc439908851

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The Role of the Media

To be able to participate in community life and make political choices citizens heavily rely on information. They need to know what is going on and the options that they should weigh, debate and act upon. An essential element for a functioning public sphere therefore is information.

Whereas formerly communication mostly happened on a face-to-face basis in large and complex societies (mass) media have evolved as the principal source of information. They act as a transport medium for the information necessary for a citizen's participation in the public sphere. Ideally there should be a wide range of media, that represent the diverse opinions and viewpoints on issues of public interest existent in a society and which are independent of the state and society's dominant economic forces.

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History: European Tradition

Only in Roman times the first rights referring to artistic works appeared. Regulations resembling a lasting exclusive right to copy did not occur until the 17th century. Before copyright was a private arrangement between guilds able to reproduce copies in commercial quantities.

In France and Western European countries "droits d'auteur" or author's rights is the core of what in the Anglo-American tradition is called copyright. Such rights are rooted in the republican revolution of the late 18th century, and the Rights of Man movement. Today in the European system the creator is front and center; later exploiters are only secondary players.

France

During the 18th century France gradually lost the ability to restrict intellectual property. Before the Revolution, all books, printers and booksellers had to have a royal stamp of approval, called a "privilege". In return for their lucrative monopoly, the French guild of printers and booksellers helped the police to suppress anything that upset royal sensibilities or ran contrary to their interests. Still there were also a whole lot of underground printers who flooded the country with pirated, pornographic and seditious literature. And thousands of writers, most at the edge of starvation.

In 1777 the King threatened the monopoly by reducing the duration of publisher's privileges to the lifetime of the authors. Accordingly a writer's work would go into the public domain after his death and could be printed by anyone. The booksellers fought back by argumenting that, no authority could take their property from them and give it to someone else. Seven months later, in August 1789, the revolutionary government ended the privilege system and from that time on anyone could print anything. Early in 1790 Marie-Jean-Antoine-Nicolas de Caritat, Marquis de Condorcet proposed giving authors power over their own work lasting until ten years after their deaths. The proposal - the basis for France's first modern copyright law - passed in 1793.

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Databody convergence

In the phrase "the rise of the citizen as a consumer", to be found on the EDS website, the cardinal political problem posed by the databody industry is summarised: the convergence of commercial and political interest in the data body business, the convergence of bureaucratic and commercial data bodies, the erosion of privacy, and the consequent undermining of democratic politics by private business interest.

When the citizen becomes a consumer, the state must become a business. In the data body business, the key word behind this new identity of government is "outsourcing". Functions, that are not considered core functions of government activity are put into the hands of private contractors.

There have long been instances where privately owned data companies, e.g. credit card companies, are allowed access to public records, e.g. public registries or electoral rolls. For example, in a normal credit card transaction, credit card companies have had access to public records in order to verify identity of a customer. For example, in the UK citizen's personal data stored on the Electoral Roll have been used for commercial purposes for a long time. The new British Data Protection Act now allows people to "opt out" of this kind of commercialisation - a legislation that has prompted protests on the part of the data industry: Experian has claimed to lose LST 500 mn as a consequence of this restriction - a figure that, even if exaggerated, may help to understand what the value of personal data actually is.

While this may serve as an example of an increased public awareness of privacy issues, the trend towards outsourcing seems to lead to a complete breakdown of the barriers between commercial and public use of personal data. This trend can be summarised by the term "outsourcing" of government functions.

Governments increasingly outsource work that is not considered core function of government, e.g. cooking meals in hospitals or mowing lawns in public parks. Such peripheral activities marked a first step of outsourcing. In a further step, governmental functions were divided between executive and judgemental functions, and executive functions increasingly entrusted to private agencies. For these agencies to be able to carry out the work assigned to them, the need data. Data that one was stored in public places, and whose handling was therefore subject to democratic accountability. Outsourcing has produced gains in efficiency, and a decrease of accountability. Outsourced data are less secure, what use they are put to is difficult to control.

The world's largest data corporation, EDS, is also among the foremost outsourcing companies. In an article about EDS' involvement in government outsourcing in Britain, Simon Davies shows how the general trend towards outsourcing combined with advances in computer technology allow companies EDS, outside of any public accountability, to create something like blueprints for the societies of the 21st century. But the problem of accountability is not the only one to be considered in this context. As Davies argues, the data business is taking own its own momentum "a ruthless company could easily hold a government to ransom". As the links between government agencies and citizens thin out, however, the links among the various agencies might increase. Linking the various government information systems would amount to further increase in efficiency, and a further undermining of democracy. The latter, after all, relies upon the separation of powers - matching government information systems would therefore pave the way to a kind of electronic totalitarianism that has little to do with the ideological bent of George Orwell's 1984 vision, but operates on purely technocratic principles.

Technically the linking of different systems is already possible. It would also create more efficiency, which means generate more income. The question, then, whether democracy concerns will prevent it from happening is one that is capable of creating

But what the EDS example shows is something that applies everywhere, and that is that the data industry is whether by intention or whether by default, a project with profound political implications. The current that drives the global economy deeper and deeper into becoming a global data body economy may be too strong to be stopped by conventional means.

However, the convergence of political and economic data bodies also has technological roots. The problem is that politically motivated surveillance and economically motivated data collection are located in the same area of information and communication technologies. For example, monitoring internet use requires more or less the same technical equipment whether done for political or economic purposes. Data mining and data warehousing techniques are almost the same. Creating transparency of citizens and customers is therefore a common objective of intelligence services and the data body industry. Given that data are exchanged in electronic networks, a compatibility among the various systems is essential. This is another factor that encourages "leaks" between state-run intelligence networks and the private data body business. And finally, given the secretive nature of state intelligence and commercial data capturing , there is little transparency. Both structures occupy an opaque zone.

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Legal Protection: European Union

Within the EU's goal of establishing a European single market also intellectual property rights are of significance. Therefore the European Commission aims at the harmonization of the respective national laws of the EU member states and for a generally more effective protection of intellectual property on an international level. Over the years it has adopted a variety of Conventions and Directives concerned with different aspects of the protection of industrial property as well as copyright and neighboring rights.

An overview of EU activities relating to intellectual property protection is available on the website of the European Commission (DG Internal Market): http://www.europa.eu.int/comm/internal_market/en/intprop/intprop/index.htm

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The Piracy "Industry"

Until recent years, the problem of piracy (the unauthorized reproduction or distribution of copyrighted works (for commercial purposes)) was largely confined to the copying and physical distribution of tapes, disks and CDs. Yet the emergence and increased use of global data networks and the WWW has added a new dimension to the piracy of intellectual property by permitting still easier copying, electronic sales and transmissions of illegally reproduced copyrighted works on a grand scale.

This new development, often referred to as Internet piracy, broadly relates to the use of global data networks to 1) transmit and download digitized copies of pirated works, 2) advertise and market pirated intellectual property that is delivered on physical media through the mails or other traditional means, and 3) offer and transmit codes or other technologies which can be used to circumvent copy-protection security measures.

Lately the International Intellectual Property Alliance has published a new report on the estimated trade losses due to piracy. (The IIPA assumes that their report actually underestimates the loss of income due to the unlawful copying and distribution of copyrighted works. Yet it should be taken into consideration that the IIPA is the representative of the U.S. core copyright industries (business software, films, videos, music, sound recordings, books and journals, and interactive entertainment software).)

Table: IIPA 1998 - 1999 Estimated Trade Loss due to Copyright Piracy (in millions of US$)





Motion Pictures

Records & Music

Business Applications

Entertainment Software

Books





1999

1998

1999

1998

1999

1998

1999

1998

1999

1998

Total Losses

1323

1421

1684

1613

3211

3437

3020

2952

673

619



Total Losses (core copyright industries)

1999

1998

9910.0

10041.5




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Identificaiton in history

In biometric technology, the subject is reduced to its physical and therefore inseparable properties. The subject is a subject in so far as it is objectified; that is, in so far as is identified with its own res extensa, Descartes' "extended thing". The subject exists in so far as it can be objectified, if it resists the objectification that comes with measurement, it is rejected or punished. Biometrics therefore provides the ultimate tool for control; in it, the dream of hermetic identity control seems to become a reality, a modern technological reconstruction of traditional identification techniques such as the handshake or the look into somebody's eyes.

The use of identification by states and other institutions of authority is evidently not simply a modern phenomenon. The ancient Babylonians and Chinese already made use of finger printing on clay to identify authors of documents, while the Romans already systematically compared handwritings.

Body measurement has long been used by the military. One of the first measures after entering the military is the identification and appropriation of the body measurements of a soldier. These measurements are filed and combined with other data and make up what today we would call the soldier's data body. With his data body being in possession of the authority, a soldier is no longer able freely socialise and is instead dependent on the disciplinary structure of the military institution. The soldier's social being in the world is defined by the military institution.

However, the military and civilian spheres of modern societies are no longer distinct entities. The very ambivalence of advanced technology (dual use technologies) has meant that "good" and "bad" uses of technology can no longer be clearly distinguished. The measurement of physical properties and the creation of data bodies in therefore no longer a military prerogative, it has become diffused into all areas of modern societies.

If the emancipatory potential of weak identities is to be of use, it is therefore necessary to know how biometric technologies work and what uses they are put to.

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Challenges for Copyright by ICT: Internet Service Providers

ISPs (Internet Service Providers) (and to a certain extent also telecom operators) are involved in the copyright debate primarily because of their role in the transmission and storage of digital information. Problems arise particularly concerning caching, information residing on systems or networks of ISPs at the directions of users and transitory communication.

Caching

Caching it is argued could cause damage because the copies in the cache are not necessarily the most current ones and the delivery of outdated information to users could deprive website operators of accurate "hit" information (information about the number of requests for a particular material on a website) from which advertising revenue is frequently calculated. Similarly harms such as defamation or infringement that existed on the original page may propagate for years until flushed from each cache where they have been replicated.

Although different concepts, similar issues to caching arise with mirroring (establishing an identical copy of a website on a different server), archiving (providing a historical repository for information, such as with newsgroups and mailing lists), and full-text indexing (the copying of a document for loading into a full-text or nearly full-text database which is searchable for keywords or concepts).

Under a literal reading of some copyright laws caching constitutes an infringement of copyright. Yet recent legislation like the DMCA or the proposed EU Directive on copyright and related rights in the information society (amended version) have provided exceptions for ISPs concerning particular acts of reproduction that are considered technical copies (caching). Nevertheless the exemption of liability for ISPs only applies if they meet a variety of specific conditions. In the course of the debate about caching also suggestions have been made to subject it to an implied license or fair use defense or make it (at least theoretically) actionable.

Information Residing on Systems or Networks at the Direction of Users

ISPs may be confronted with problems if infringing material on websites (of users) is hosted on their systems. Although some copyright laws like the DMCA provide for limitations on the liability of ISPs if certain conditions are met, it is yet unclear if ISPs should generally be accountable for the storage of infringing material (even if they do not have actual knowledge) or exceptions be established under specific circumstances.

Transitory Communication

In the course of transmitting digital information from one point on a network to another ISPs act as a data conduit. If a user requests information ISPs engage in the transmission, providing of a connection, or routing thereof. In the case of a person sending infringing material over a network, and the ISP merely providing facilities for the transmission it is widely held that they should not be liable for infringement. Yet some copyright laws like the DMCA provide for a limitation (which also covers the intermediate and transient copies that are made automatically in the operation of a network) of liability only if the ISPs activities meet certain conditions.

For more information on copyright (intellectual property) related problems of ISPs (BBSs (Bulletin Board Service Operators), systems operators and other service providers) see:

Harrington, Mark E.: On-line Copyright Infringement Liability for Internet Service Providers: Context, Cases & Recently Enacted Legislation. In: Intellectual Property and Technology Forum. June 4, 1999.

Teran, G.: Who is Vulnerable to Suit? ISP Liability for Copyright Infringement. November 2, 1999.

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Steganography

Ciphers as well as codes are transmitted openly. Everyone can see that they exist. Not so with steganograms.
Steganography is the art and science of communicating in a way which hides the existence of the secret part in that communication. During the Italian Renaissance and the time of the Elizabethan Age in England cryptography was very popular, for political reasons as well as for amusements (see John Dee).
In literature steganography played an important role. Many steganographs of that period have only been deciphered recently like some of the Shakespearean sonnets, which now seem to proof that the actor William Shakespeare was not the author of the famous poems and dramas, but that the latter' name was, and Francis Bacon, or even Francis Tudor, as some ciphers and other sources talk of him as Queen Elisabeth I.'s secret son.

for further details see:
http://home.att.net/~tleary/
http://www.thur.de/ulf/stegano/
http://www2.prestel.co.uk/littleton/gm2_rw.htm

One kind of steganogram is digital watermarking:
Watermarks protect digital images, videos, but also audio and multimedia products. They are made out of digital signals, put into other digital signals. They try to be invisible on first sight and should be nearly impossible to remove. The process of producing watermarks is to overlay some sort of identifying image over the original image (non-digital watermarks, like on money can be seen by holding the paper against light). Copying the image destroys the watermark, which cannot be copied. Any alteration of the original destroys the watermark, too.

Watermarking is one of the typical inventions of cryptography to assist the biggest content owners, but advertised as something necessary and helpful for everybody. Who in fact gets any advantage out of watermarking? The private user most of the time will not really need it except for small entities of pictures maybe.
But the big enterprises do. There is a tendency to watermark more and more information in the Internet, which until now was considered as free and as a cheap method to receive information. Watermarking could stop this democratic development.

for further information see:
http://www.isse.gmu.edu/~njohnson/Steganography

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Bureaucratic data bunkers



Among the foremost of the data bunkers government bureaucracies. Bureaucracies are the oldest forms of bunkers and are today deeply engrained in modern societies. Bureaucracies have always had the function of collecting and administering the data of subjects. What make this process more problematic in the age of ICT is that a lot more data can be collected, they can be collected in clandestine ways (e.g. in surveillance situations), and the can be combined and merged using advanced data mining technologies. In addition, there is a greater rationale for official data collecting, as a lot more data is required for the functioning of public administration as in previous periods, as societies rush to adopt increasingly complex technologies, above all ICTs. The increasing complexity of modern societies means that an increasing number of bureaucratic decision is taken, all of which require a calculation process. Complexity, viewed through government spectacles, generates insecurity - a great deal of the bureaucratic activity therefore revolves around the topic of security.

In spite of the anti-bureaucratic rhetoric of most governments, these factors provides the bureaucracies with an increased hold on society. Foremost bureaucratic data bunkers include the following:

    Law enforcement agencies

    Fiscal agencies

    Intelligence agencies

    Social welfare agencies

    Social insurance institutions

    Public health agencies

    Educational institutions



These are agencies that enjoy the privileged protection of the state. Those among them that operate in the field of security are further protected against public scrutiny, as they operate in an area to which democratic reason has no access.

What makes the data repositories of these institutions different from private data bunkers is their "official", i.e. their politically binding and definitive character. CAE speak of the bureaucracy as a "concrete form of uninterruptible, official and legitimised memory."

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Private data bunkers

On the other hand are the data bunkers of the private sector, whose position is different. Although these are fast-growing engines of data collection with a much greater degree of dynamism, they may not have the same privileged position - although one has to differentiate among the general historical and social conditions into which a data bunker is embedded. For example, it can safely be assumed that the databases of a large credit card company or bank are more protected than the bureaucracies of small developing countries.

Private data bunkers include

    Banks

    Building societies

    Credit bureaus

    Credit card companies

    Direct marketing companies

    Insurance companies

    Telecom service providers

    Mail order stores

    Online stores


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Disinformation and Science

Disinformation's tools emerged from science and art.
And furthermore: disinformation can happen in politics of course, but also in science:
for example by launching ideas which have not been proven exactly until the moment of publication. e.g. the thought that time runs backwards in parts of the universe:
http://www.newscientist.com/ns/19991127/newsstory3.html

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Optical communication system by Aeneas Tacitus, 4th century B.C.

Aeneas Tacitus, a Greek military scientist and cryptographer, invented an optical communication system that combines water and beacon telegraphy. Torches indicated the beginnings and the ends of message transmissions while water jars were used to transmit the messages. These jars had a plugged standard-size hole drilled on the bottom side and were filled with water. As those who sent and those who received the message unplugged the jars simultaneously, the water drained out. Because the transmitted messages corresponded to water levels, the sender indicated by torch signal that the appropriate water level has been reached. It is a disadvantage that the possible messages are restricted to a given code, but as this system was mainly used for military purposes, this was offset by the advantage that it was almost impossible for outsiders to understand these messages unless they possessed the codebook.

With communication separated from transportation, the distant became near.

Tacitus' telegraph system was very fast and not excelled until the end of the 18th century.

For further information see Joanne Chang & Anna Soellner, Decoding Device, http://www.smith.edu/hsc/museum/ancient_inventions/decoder2.html

http://www.smith.edu/hsc/museum/ancient_inven...
INDEXCARD, 1/20
 
DES

The U.S. Data Encryption Standard (= DES) is the most widely used encryption algorithm, especially used for protection of financial transactions. It was developed by IBM in 1971. It is a symmetric-key cryptosystem. The DES algorithm uses a 56-bit encryption key, meaning that there are 72,057,594,037,927,936 possible keys.

for more information see:
http://www.britannica.com/bcom/eb/article/3/0,5716,117763+5,00.html
http://www.cryptography.com/des/

http://www.britannica.com/bcom/eb/article/3/0...
http://www.cryptography.com/des/
INDEXCARD, 2/20
 
Clipper Chip

The Clipper Chip is a cryptographic device proposed by the U.S. government that purportedly intended to protect private communications while at the same time permitting government agents to obtain the "keys" upon presentation of what has been vaguely characterized as "legal authorization." The "keys" are held by two government "escrow agents" and would enable the government to access the encrypted private communication. While Clipper would be used to encrypt voice transmissions, a similar chip known as Capstone
would be used to encrypt data. The underlying cryptographic algorithm, known as Skipjack, was developed by the National Security Agency (NSA).

INDEXCARD, 3/20
 
Competitive Enterprise Institute

The Competitive Enterprise Institute is a pro-market, public policy group committed to advancing the principles of free enterprise and limited government.

INDEXCARD, 4/20
 
Hill & Knowlton

John W. Hill opened the doors of his first public relations office in 1927 in Cleveland, Ohio. His early clients were banks, steel manufacturers, and other industrial companies in the Midwest. Hill managed the firm until 1962, and remained active in it until shortly before his death in New York City in 1977. In 1952, Hill and Knowlton became the first American public relations consultancy to recognize the business communication implications engendered by formation of the European Economic Community. Hill and Knowlton established a network of affiliates across Europe and by the middle of the decade had become the first American public relations firm to have wholly-owned offices in Europe. Hill and Knowlton, a member of the WPP Group integrated communications services family, has extensive resources and geographic coverage with its 59 offices in 34 countries. Hill and Knowlton is known for its hard-hitting tactics and said to have connections with intelligence services.

INDEXCARD, 5/20
 
Edward Heath

Conservative prime minister of Great Britain from 1970 to 1974. Of modest origins, Heath was educated at Oxford, where he was elected president of the University Conservative Association in 1937. In 1938, as chairman of the Federation of University Conservative Associations and president of the Oxford Union, he actively opposed the policy of appeasement toward Nazi Germany pursued by the Conservative prime minister Neville Chamberlain. He served in the army during World War II, worked in the Ministry of Civil Aviation in 1946-47, was editor of the Church Times from January 1948 to October 1949, and then became a member of a merchant banking firm.

INDEXCARD, 6/20
 
Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero

Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero († 1980) was elected archbishop because he was very conservative. But when he saw how more and more priests and definitely innocent people were murdered, he changed his attitudes and became one of the sharpest critics of the government. He gave shelter to those in danger, never stopped talking against violence and his Sunday sermons on the radio where moments to tell the truth to the Salvadorians, also mentioning the names of the disappeared or killed persons. As Romero got extremely popular and dangerous for the population he was killed by death squads, while reading a sermon.

INDEXCARD, 7/20
 
Friedrich Kittler, The History of Communication Media

In this essay, Friedrich Kittler, one of the world's leading media theorists and media historicist, offers a concise and fascinating history of communication technologies in general terms from its beginnings up to now, provoking new insights by showing interesting interdependencies.

http://www.ctheory.com/ga1.14.html

INDEXCARD, 8/20
 
Economic rights

The economic rights (besides moral rights and in some cases also neighboring rights) granted to the owners of copyright usually include 1) copying or reproducing a work, 2) performing a work in public, 3) making a sound recording of a work, 4) making a motion picture of a work, 5) broadcasting a work, 6) translating a work and 7) adapting a work. Under certain national laws some of these rights are not exclusive rights of authorization but in specific cases, merely rights to remuneration.

INDEXCARD, 9/20
 
Gaius Julius Caesar

Gaius Julius Caesar (100-44 BC) was a Roman Statesman who came to power through a military career and by buying of votes. His army won the civil war, run over Spain, Sicily and Egypt, where he made Cleopatra a Queen. For reaching even more power he increased the number of senators. But he also organized social measures to improve the people's food-situation. In February 44 BC he did not accept the kingship offered by Marc Anthony, which made him even more popular. One month later he was murdered during a senate sitting.

INDEXCARD, 10/20
 
François Duvalier

b. April 14, 1907, Port-au-Prince, Haiti
d. April 21, 1971, Port-au-Prince

By name PAPA DOC, president of Haiti whose 14-year regime was of unprecedented duration in that country. A supporter of President Dumarsais Estimé, Duvalier was appointed director general of the National Public Health Service in 1946. He was appointed underminister of labour in 1948 and the following year became minister of public health and labour, a post that he retained until May 10, 1950, when President Estimé was overthrown by a military junta under Paul E. Magloire, who was subsequently elected president. By 1954 he had become the central opposition figure and went underground. Duvalier was elected president in September 1957. Setting about to consolidate his power, he reduced the size of the army and organized the Tontons Macoutes ("Bogeymen"), a private force responsible for terrorizing and assassinating alleged foes of the regime. Late in 1963 Duvalier moved further toward an absolutist regime, promoting a cult of his person as the semi divine embodiment of the Haitian nation. In April 1964 he was declared president for life. Although diplomatically almost completely isolated, excommunicated by the Vatican until 1966 for harassing the clergy, and threatened by conspiracies against him, Duvalier was able to stay in power longer than any of his predecessors.

INDEXCARD, 11/20
 
Bruce Schneier

Bruce Schneier is president of Counterpane Systems in Minneapolis. This consulting enterprise specialized in cryptography and computer security. He is the author of the book Applied Cryptography and inventor of the Blowfish and Twofish encryption algorithms.

INDEXCARD, 12/20
 
Scientology

Official name Church Of Scientology, religio-scientific movement developed in the United States in the 1950s by the author L. Ron Hubbard (1911-86). The Church of Scientology was formally established in the United States in 1954 and was later incorporated in Great Britain and other countries. The scientific basis claimed by the church for its diagnostic and therapeutic practice is disputed, and the church has been criticized for the financial demands that it makes on its followers. From the 1960s the church and various of its officials or former officials faced government prosecutions as well as private lawsuits on charges of fraud, tax evasion, financial mismanagement, and conspiring to steal government documents, while the church on the other hand claimed it was being persecuted by government agencies and by established medical organizations. Some former Scientology officials have charged that Hubbard used the tax-exempt status of the church to build a profitable business empire.

INDEXCARD, 13/20
 
PGP

A cryptographic software application that was developed by Phil Zimmerman at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) is a cryptographic product family that enables people to securely exchange messages, and to secure files, disk volumes and network connections with both privacy and strong authentication.

INDEXCARD, 14/20
 
Satellites

Communications satellites are relay stations for radio signals and provide reliable and distance-independent high-speed connections even at remote locations without high-bandwidth infrastructure.

On point-to-point transmission, the transmission method originally employed on, satellites face increasing competition from fiber optic cables, so point-to-multipoint transmission increasingly becomes the ruling satellite technology. Point-to-multipoint transmission enables the quick implementation of private networks consisting of very small aperture terminals (VSAT). Such networks are independent and make mobile access possible.

In the future, satellites will become stronger, cheaper and their orbits will be lower; their services might become as common as satellite TV is today.

For more information about satellites, see How Satellites Work (http://octopus.gma.org/surfing/satellites) and the Tech Museum's satellite site (http://www.thetech.org/hyper/satellite).

http://www.whatis.com/vsat.htm
http://octopus.gma.org/surfing/satellites
INDEXCARD, 15/20
 
T. Matthew Ciolek, Global Networking: A Timeline

This document, intended as a reliable electronic reference tool, provides a timeline for three types of developments and milestones: (1) advances in long distance person-to-person communication; (2) advances in storage, replication, cataloguing, finding, and retrieval of data; and (3) standardization of concepts and tools for long distance interaction.

The advancements may have a technical (hardware), conceptual (software), or an organizational aspect, or represent an important milestone in the history of a given invention, and are annotated as such in the timeline.

The period covered ranges from 30000 BC up to now.

http://www.ciolek.com/PAPERS/milestones.html

INDEXCARD, 16/20
 
Mark

A mark (trademark or service mark) is "... a sign, or a combination of signs, capable of distinguishing the goods or services of one undertaking from those of other undertakings. The sign may particularly consist of one or more distinctive words, letters, numbers, drawings or pictures, emblems, colors or combinations of colors, or may be three-dimensional..." (WIPO) To be protected a mark must be registered in a government office whereby generally the duration is limited in time, but can be periodically (usually every 10 years) renewed.

INDEXCARD, 17/20
 
Coca-Cola Company

American corporation founded in 1892 and today engaged primarily in the manufacture and sale of syrup and concentrate for Coca-Cola, a sweetened, carbonated beverage that is a cultural institution in the United States and a symbol around the world of American tastes. The company also produces and sells other soft drinks and citrus beverages. Corporate headquarters are in Atlanta, Ga. The post-World War II years saw diversification in the packaging of Coca-Cola and also in the development or acquisition of new products. In 1946 the company purchased rights to the Fanta soft drink, previously developed in Germany. It introduced the lemon-lime drink Sprite in 1961 and the sugar-free cola Tab in 1963. By purchase of Minute Maid Corporation in 1960, it entered the citrus beverage market. In 1982 the company acquired a controlling interest in Columbia Pictures, a motion picture and entertainment company, but sold its interest to Sony Corporation in 1989.

INDEXCARD, 18/20
 
RSA

The best known of the two-key cryptosystems developed in the mid-1980s is the Rivest-Shamir-Adleman (RSA) cryptoalgorithm, which was first published in April, 1977. Since that time, the algorithm has been employed in the most widely-used Internet electronic communications encryption program, Pretty Good Privacy (PGP). It is also employed in both the Netscape Navigator and Microsoft Explorer web browsing programs in their implementations of the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL), and by Mastercard and VISA in the Secure Electronic Transactions (SET) protocol for credit card transactions.

INDEXCARD, 19/20
 
skytale

The skytale (pronunciation: ski-ta-le) was a Spartan tool for encryption. It consisted of a piece of wood and a leather-strip. Any communicating party needed exactly the same size wooden stick. The secret message was written on the leather-strip that was wound around the wood, unwound again and sent to the recipient by a messenger. The recipient would rewound the leather and by doing this enciphering the message.

INDEXCARD, 20/20